Hello,
I've just read an article on Linux Weekly News, which I guess might be interesting for Wine: http://lwn.net/Articles/178673/ (How Mono got into Fedora)
I'll try to summarize: Basically, Novell bought Commerce One when they went bancrupt. Commerce One had some important patents related to XML webservices. Novell donated those to a newly formed organization called "Open Invention Network". OIN gives royalty free licences to companys and individuals who agree not to sue certain open source projects for violating their patents in turn. (http://openinventionnetwork.com/pat_linuxdefpop.html - Wine is currently not on the list).
The interesting thing is the following. If a project, which is on this list, is sued for patent infringment, then it is allowed to use the OIN patents in a countersuit.
I hope this isn't old news. Perhaps Wine should apply to get on OIN's "Linux definition" list?
Bye,
-
Michael Jung